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'YEARS OF NEGLECT,' FIRE SPARK CROWN HEIGHTS RENT STRIKE: TENANTS
Patch.com, May 23, 2023
Elana Rinsler woke up Feb. 7 like she had any other morning, but her bleary eyes quickly spotted danger: smoke billowing from her apartment's floor.
She grabbed her two dogs and ran.
Hours after firefighters put out the blaze that devastated her home of 12 years, Rinsler sat amid the wreckage and waited for someone from her building's management company, Hager Management, to even "pretend to care" about her well-being, she said.
She's still waiting. Hager's representatives sent her off with no financial support or guidance, she said.
"We literally were made homeless," Rinsler said. "It's been terrible, it's been a lot."
The fire came after years of sewage leaks, cockroach infestations and neglect, according to accounts by Rinsler and other tenants, as well as many public property records. Subsequent months without gas and failed efforts to sit down with building managers prompted tenants to take a drastic measure to restore safety to their building: a rent strike.
'BOLD AND BRAVE': STRIPPER STRIKE CELEBRATES UNION EFFORT
Patch.com, August 20, 2022
Charm was always told working as a stripper would hurt her chances of working as an actress.
"Somehow I always knew that was [bull]," Star Garden dancer Charm said.
Charm felt proud of her work as a stripper. She saw herself as an artist doing the same work as any actor or dancer: performing to make someone feel something powerful.
"Sex work doesn't become degrading until it becomes devalued," Charm said.
Charm is among roughly 25 topless dancers at North Hollywood's Star Garden Topless Dive Bar who are working to become the country's only strippers union. The group on Wednesday filed a petition for union recognition with the National Labor Relations Board, ultimately looking to be represented by Actors' Equity, according to Actors' Equity President Kate Schindle. If approved, it would be the first time in 25 years that the nation had a strippers union.
OFFICER'S DEATH WAS RETALIATION FOR LAPD RAPE CASE, LAWSUIT ALLEGES
December 9, 2022, Patch.com
The mother of a Los Angeles Police Department officer killed in a training exercise filed a lawsuit this week, claiming the department is engaged in a coverup.
Officer Houston Tipping died on May 29, three days after a training accident that caused spinal cord injuries, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Attorney Bradley Gage and Tipping's mother, Shirley Huffman, say Tipping was intentionally targeted and killed for his involvement in an internal sexual assault investigation.
Huffman is suing the Los Angeles Police Department and one officer she believes was responsible for Tipping's death.
LAPD does not comment on pending litigation, a representative told Patch. LAPD Chief Michel Moore, however, has called the allegations “baseless.”
CURB-JUMPING BUS CRASH TURNED PLG JUICE BAR INTO 'HORROR FILM'
Patch.com, May 17, 2023,
Tiffany Waddell walked into her beloved and newly renovated juice bar Monday and found a completely unrecognizable shop.
"It's a complete disaster," Waddell said. "It looked like a horror film."
Waddell is the proud owner of Blends By Us, a juice bar on Clarkson and Rogers avenue that was decimated after a school bus jumped the curb and smashed into her building earlier this month.
Fortunately there were no injuries linked to the May 5 crash — and no kids had been on board the school bus — but collateral damage has changed the lives of the building's inhabitants.
LOCALS FIGHT TO SAVE BROOKLYN CHURCH FROM BECOMING LUXURY HOUSING
The future of a historic Brooklyn church hangs in the balance as locals make a last-ditch effort to save the beloved community space from developers with luxury housing plans.
Park Church on Russell Street near Nassau Avenue was the subject Thursday of a New York County hearing where locals, advocates and electeds pleaded for a seat at the table when the historic space is sold.
Owners Metropolitan New York Synod Council petitioned the Attorney General's office in June to sell the church to developer GW Equities LLC for $4.7 million, a deal residents hope to quash.
NORCAL SCHOOLS MULL ARMED SECURITY, SAFETY OPTIONS FOLLOWING UVALDE
Patch.com, July 24, 2022
Shortly after the City of Lathrop, California decided to contract armed private security, school personnel asked a new armed guard to leave Lathrop High School.
City officials had instructed a private security guard to patrol Lathrop High School from afar in the wake of the deadly massacre in Uvalde, Texas, the Manteca/Ripon Bulletin reported. But due to miscommunications, the school was never told to expect a new security guard, a Manteca Unified School District official told Patch.
The district continues to have no interest in hiring private security given its extensive School Resource Officer program with multiple local law enforcement agencies, according to Lindsay Harris, Coordinator of Community Outreach for the district.
SLUTTY VEGAN FACES FEDERAL WAGE THEFT LAWSUIT IN BROOKLYN
(First report) April 12, 2023, Patch.com
DOCUMENTED LAPD VIOLENCE AGAINST REPORTERS TRIGGERS INVESTIGATION
Patch.com, June 30, 2022
Tina-Desiree Berg was looking for a better camera angle to film a nearby arrest at Friday's abortion rights demonstration when she was hit in the head by an officer, video from the scene shows. She grabbed a railing to break her fall when another officer came in and threw her to the ground.
“You’ve got to learn,” the Los Angeles police officer tells Berg after she stands back up to show him the big, bright yellow press badge that was already hanging around her neck.
She had made an effort to stay a safe distance from the arrest, staying mostly by a railing on the sidewalk.
BROOKLYN PLANET-GAZERS LINE UP AROUND BLOCK FOR GLIMPSE OF SATURN
Patch.com, August 24, 2023
Brooklynites knew what to do when a telescope appeared in the middle of a Park Slope intersection Wednesday night: they waited their turn to gaze up at Saturn.
The line went around the block — and it lasted for over an hour.
The beautiful moment on Eighth Avenue and 9th Street — where "groovy, hippy kids" leaving an Alvvays concert in Prospect Park found the telescope — was captured on TikTok by Brooklynite Daphne Juliet Ellis.
"It's all love," Ellis said of the scene.
Without coordination, concert-goers lined up along 9th Street to wait their turn to look at Saturn, with help from a smiling Joe Delfausse, an amateur astronomer from Park Slope, who greeted them one-by-one.
CA TASK FORCE OFFERS WINDOW INTO REPARATIONS ESTIMATES, CALCULATIONS
October 1, 2022, Patch.com
The hottest vegan restaurant group in the country has landed in the boiling waters of Brooklyn federal court, where workers filed a lawsuit this month accusing the eatery of taking their pay.
The Slutty Vegan outpost in Fort Greene is the target of a new suit from three workers who say their paychecks were miscalculated, overtime evaded and promised bonuses never paid, court records show.
This is the second of such federal lawsuits tied to founder Pinky Cole, whoappeared this week in The New Yorker and heads the Atlanta-based vegan chain valued at a hundred million dollars.
Patch was unable to reach Slutty Vegan for comment, but Cole denied claims of unpaid wages and withheld tips at Atlanta's Bar Vegan in January.
"What do I gain withholding someone’s hard earned money when my blessings overflow everyday?" Cole wrote on Instagram. "I don’t lie, I don’t steal and more importantly, I DON’T PLAY WITH PEOPLE’S MONEY."
Chris Lodgson stepped up to the mic after a long series of impassioned speakers and asked audience members to raise their hands if they were descendants of slaves. The vast majority of the near 100-person crowd threw their hands into the air.
"Say reparations," Lodgson prompted. The word boomed through the California Science Center, kids playing upstairs. To Lodgson and many other speakers, the need for reparations is obvious.
"We need financial repair as a people,” Lodgson said. “We need cash, we need money, we need wealth."
Lodgson, a community organizer with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, was one of dozens of people to address the California Reparations Task Force on Sept. 23 at a meeting in Los Angeles. In the next few years, California could become the first state in the country to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per person to descendants of people enslaved in the United States.
THE 'LAST WIENER': NYC FANS WAIT HOURS TO SEE CHAMP GUZZLE 62 HOT DOGS
July 4, 2023, Patch.com
Time stood still at Coney Island Tuesday afternoon as a hopeful crowd waited to see if NYPD officials would reverse their decision to cancel the beloved July Fourth hot dog eating competition early.
By 12:15 p.m., all hope seemed to be lost.
“Joey, Joey” the crowd chants outside, dripping wet.
The crowd was thousands strong under a hot summer sun Tuesday morning for the woman's heat of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.
And about 2 p.m., two hours after the contest had been officially called off, a raucous and drenched crowd finally got what they had all come for — to watch Joey Chestnut defend his Mustard Belt by eating 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes.
'BEVERLY HILLS COP 4' TO MOVE AHEAD IN FAMOUS TOWN, WITH 1 BIG CAVEAT
June 23, 2022, Patch.com
Eddie Murphy is slated to reprise his lead role in a fourth installment of the beloved “Beverly Hills Cop” franchise, but he may face a tough crowd in Beverly Hills after the city made script approval a requirement for certain filming clearances.
The production will need cooperation from the city of Beverly Hills to bring the iconic film to life — a partnership that could also put some comedic moments on the chopping block to protect the integrity of the Beverly Hills Police Department, according to city council members.
A representative of Beverly Hills and the police department will review parts of the "Beverly Hills Cop 4" script for its portrayal of the city, local crime and the police department as a condition to the production's ability to film certain scenes in the city.
"Many things that were funny in the 80s are not funny now, and it's really important to all of us to make sure that the integrity of our Beverly Hills Police Department is really maintained because we do have an incredible police department," Mayor Lili Bosse said.
'THIS IS OUR HOME': BED-STUY ATTEMPTS TO SAVE ITS BROWNSTONES
June 22, 2023, Patch.com
Bed-Stuy advocates have their eye on landmark status for two blocks of Willoughby Avenue and Hart Street — and they're determined not to let developers win again.
The group that fought to save the Jacob Dangler mansion 441 Willoughby — a 125-year-old building demolished in 2022 — is now focused on a group of about 150 buildings, nearly all brownstones, between Nostrand and Marcy avenues.
"Brownstones and tree-lined streets are being destroyed to make way for anonymous glass new luxury buildings, whose skyrocketing rents displace neighbors and further contribute to the neighborhood's gentrification," organizers wrote in a change.org petition with nearly 700 signatures Wednesday.
On June 8, dozens of locals discussed the landmarking push at a community meeting organized by Willoughby Nostrand Marcy Block Association and Justice for 441 Willoughby.
SHIRLEY CHISHOLM GETS A NEW 'DO IN BK MONUMENT REDESIGN
July 13, 2023, Patch.com
An excited Brooklyn audience weighed in on a new mock-up of the much-anticipated monument planned for Prospect Park to honor "trailblazer" and Brooklyn warrior Shirley Chisholm.
The monument holds heavy significance for the local community that Chisholm represented in the New York State Assembly and U.S. Congress. And on Tuesday, dozens of locals "oooed" and "aaahed" at new renderings of the 32-foot monument that will live at the Parkside entrance of Brooklyn's Backyard.
City officials detailed edits made since the first draft, which was revealed in 2019.
Originally designed at 40 feet tall, the monument is now designed to be 32 feet tall to fit in the with the nearby trees, said Kendal Henry of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs.
BREAKING NEWS EXPERIENCE
78-YEAR-OLD SHOT DEAD BY COPS IN HIS BED-STUY HOME: NYPD
Patch.com, April 13, 2023
An elderly man was shot dead by police in his Bed-Stuy apartment Thursday afternoon, the NYPD said.
The 78-year-old had a gun in his hand when he opened his front door to two cops at 330 Lewis Ave. about 1:15 p.m., said NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.
"An elderly male lost his life today," Maddrey said. "It's very tough."
1 DEAD, 1 INJURED AFTER PLANE CRASHES AT SOCAL PLANT NURSERY
(Exclusive sourcing) Patch.com, July 23, 2022
One person died and another was injured in a small plane crash in Fallbrook Saturday afternoon, authorities said. This is the second small plane crash in as many days in Southern California.
The injured pilot was transported to a local trauma center in critical condition, according to the North County Fire Protection District. The passenger was pronounced dead on the scene, authorities said. No one else was on the two-seat aircraft.
Goldman Sachs Analyst Vanishes From Brooklyn Mirage: NYPD, Friends
(First report & Exclusive sourcing) Patch.com, July 31, 2023
A Goldman Sachs analyst and a young psychologist both vanished from a popular Brooklyn venue this summer, officials say.
One was found dead in the Newtown Creek, according to police. The other, according to a location-tracking app, disappeared on a bridge that crosses it.
Frank James Gets 10 Life Sentences For 'Horrific' BK Subway Shooting
Patch.com, October 5, 2023
Brooklyn subway shooter Frank James was sentenced to 10 concurrent life sentences and an additional 10 years in prison Thursday, according to U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. The sentencing comes more than a year after he opened fire in a subway car, injuring 10 people and gripping the city in terror.
James' lawyers plan to appeal the sentence, a representative of the U.S. Attorney's office said.
"Today, Frank James was justly held accountable," Peace said Thursday outside the courthouse.
WIFE OF MUSIC EXEC CLARENCE AVANT KILLED IN BEVERLY HILLS
Jacqueline Avant, the wife of music legend Clarence Avant, was shot and killed in Trousdale Estates Wednesday, Netflix confirmed to Patch.
Jacqueline Avant was the mother-in-law of Ted Sarandos, Netflix's CEO.
The Beverly Hills Police Department responded to a report of a shooting in the 1100 block of Mayor Place in Trousdale Estates at 2:23 a.m., according to the department's executive officer, Lt. Giovanni Trejo. The victim was declared dead after being transported to a local hospital.
MOM DEAD, 2 CHILDREN INJURED IN 'HORRIFIC' BLOODY HAMMER ATTACK: NYPD
Patch.com, August 23, 2023
A Brooklyn roommate's attack left behind two critically injured kids, a fatally wounded mom and a bloody hammer, police said Wednesday.
The violent roommate attacked the young family — the mom was 43 and the kids are 3 and 5 — in the three-bedroom apartment they shared on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues about 2:50 p.m., according to Chief of Patrol John Chell.
'LIKE A MOVIE': INNOCENT TEEN SHOT IN CROWN HEIGHTS, NYPD SAYS
Two teenagers — one an innocent bystander — were wounded in a broad daylight shooting that sent Crown Heights locals running for their lives Wednesday morning, according to the NYPD and a witness.
Shots rang out on the corner of Eastern Parkway and Franklin Avenue about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, leaving a 16- and a 17-year-old with injuries, according to police and nearby Dunkin' store manager Elaine Antrobus.
"It's like a movie," Antrobus said. "Beyond scary."
